Lifestyles

Smell like a flower, and feel like one, too

Locket jewelry that contains essential oil-based solid perfumes, made by Crystal Baldwin, of the Aromatherapy Institute of Colorado. (Courtesy photo)

OILS VS. PERFUME

Curious about wearing essential oils instead of perfume? Here are a few tips from Crystal Baldwin, founder of the Aromatherapy Institute of Colorado:

1. Start by educating yourself.

You shouldn't just buy a bottle of essential oils and slap it on your skin. Some undiluted citrus oils have phototoxic properties. Clove oil can irritate the skin unless highly diluted.

Sign up for a class about the basics of essential oils and learn about potential dangers, contraindications and how to properly dilute them.

Baldwin's next essential oils class is an Aromatherapy Holiday Gift Making Class on Dec. 8. She will teach the basics of essential oils, and help participants make shower steamers, aromatic incense, a facial serum and a herbal skin steamer. (Click here to learn more about Earth Sweet Essential Oils.)

Baldwin also encourages her students to learn how to identify reputable companies. Make sure the company imports directly from the distillery, tests the oils and will share those results with you.

2. Learn how to blend.

You can blend essential oils with a base oil, such as jojoba, to create a roll-on perfume. Baldwin's favorite is solid perfumes, made by melting down beeswax and mixing with jojoba oil and drops of the essential oils of your choice. Solid perfumes are protective, hydrating and nurturing to apply, because you must rub them on your body.

A scent note refers to how strong a scent is and how quickly it will evaporate.

Citrus essential oils, like orange, are considered "top notes," with a strong initial aroma that will burn off quickly. Florals, such as lavender, tend to be middle notes; they're soft, they linger and they tie the top and bottom notes together. A base note is an intense, earthy oil, such as sandalwood or patchouli.

If you are new to perfume making, Baldwin recommends using no more than three scents in one blend. For example, if your perfume included 10 drops total, you might use one base note drop, four middle notes and five top notes.

4. Keep blending and experimenting, until you find combinations that work for you.

"It's very doable. To make a perfume is not that difficult," Baldwin says. "But the more in-depth you get, and how you blend -- that's what makes perfumers millionaires."

The worst gift I ever received was Michael Jackson cologne from the Dollar Store.

Obviously, this assertion stands on its own and requires no explanation as to why.

However, my aversion to this gift ran deeper than the offensively cheesy packaging, the question why my brother thought I might want to smell like Michael Jackson to begin with and even beyond the stinging sensation that assaulted my nostrils when I opened the box.

Turns out, I am tragically allergic to Michael Jackson cologne.

Doctors don't conduct intradermal skin testing for this kind of information, guys. You have to live and learn it.

Within seconds of the MJ particles penetrating my nasal passageway, my face blew up into a puffy, welted tomato, and an itchy rash crept down my chest. I spent that entire Christmas morning with a cold washcloth on my eyes and was unable to partake in my family's annual holiday rituals of dancing to reggae Christmas music while wearing plastic elf ears and throwing soaps on ropes into trees.

My family is rather complex.

Since Michael Jackson grinched all over my Christmas, I haven't been the greatest fan of perfume, across the board. But I do like to smell purty.

Instead of the alcohol-based (and apparently poison-based, if it costs $1 for 26 ounces) perfumes you can find in stores, I now wear essential oil blends.

Crystal Baldwin, the founder of the Aromatherapy Institute of Colorado, calls them "perfumes for wellness." Baldwin, of Golden, teaches classes on how to blend essential oils into homemade perfumes.

She sells her own perfume and skin care creations, as well pure, tested essential oils for her students to play with. She makes unique locket jewelry that contain essential oil-based solid perfumes.

Baldwin even sells "horse perfumes," which are essential oil sprays designed to calm horses with behavioral issues. Baldwin believes essential oils can have that effect on humans, too. That's why she left a 20-year career in medicine to study essential oils.

"I found them to be a much better healing modality," she says.

Essential oils instead of perfume is the anti-Dollar Store cologne. In fact, a few distilled drops of frankincense can zap that MJ-induced headache right away.

So why make synthetic perfumes at all -- especially the ones that are painful, itchy and truly put the "bad" in Michael Jackson?

For starters, it takes 60,000 roses to make one ounce of rose oil, Baldwin says. Producing synthetic is cheaper, faster and independent of crop production.

"It's not a fragrance or synthetic oil. It comes from a plant with a chemical composition that affects our body," Baldwin says. "Not only do you have this beautiful scent, but you have a response to the plant that does not happen with synthetic fragrances."

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